Cincinnati School Holds Active Shooter Drill

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and Sycamore Township Fire Department helped the school facilitate the interactive drill, which included an intruder entering the building, police responding and firing blanks, students evaluating the situation and first responders helping those who were labeled as being injured.

By Jessica Davis

February 15, 2019

Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, held an active shooter drill Tuesday to ensure that students, teachers and staff will be prepared if an intruder enters the campus.

According to Jerry Bitman, Moeller High School’s security director, said the current climate requires preparing for the unthinkable.

“Unfortunately it is the age that we live in. Every day you can see what is going on in our world,” Bitman told WLWT5. “Hopefully never, but if something was to happen, they will know how to react and what to do."

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and Sycamore Township Fire Department helped the school facilitate the interactive drill, which included an intruder entering the building, police responding and firing blanks, students evaluating the situation and first responders helping those who were labeled as being injured.

Bitman said it was important in terms of student and staff safety to create a muscle memory of high-intensity emergency situations.

“We can get information out to our teachers. We've told all of our students their teacher is the captain of the classroom. What they say goes. If they say you need to evacuate, you evacuate. If we are going to say on lockdown and barricade, then stay on lockdown and barricade,” Bitman said.

Archbishop Moeller High School faculty, staff and students are being trained using to use to ALICE method: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.

Students begin training in the ALICE method during their freshman year.

“We want all of our students to get out of this building safe. That is our end goal. All of our students faculty and staff, I tell them this after each training. At the end of the day i want you to go home,” Bitman said.